George IV (1762–1830) as Prince Regent, after Lawrence

The Artist: Bone was born in Truro, Cornwall, the son of a cabinetmaker. He was apprenticed as a china painter, but after the failure of the Bristol factory where he was working, he settled in London about 1779. The greater part of his output consisted of copies in enamel of old master and contemporary paintings, but he painted a few portraits ad vivum. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1781 until 1834 and was named a royal academician in 1811. He served as enamel painter to George III, George IV, and William IV, and he often incorporated references to these and similar appointments in the lengthy inscriptions he wrote in the enamel on the back of his miniatures. He died in London.

The Miniature: The portrait by Lawrence from which this is copied is probably the full-length painting made for Lord Charles Stewart, afterward third marquis of Londonderry, and exhibited as no. 65 at the Royal Academy in 1815 (private collection, Kent; Kenneth Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Oxford, 1989, no. 325[c]). There are eight comparable enamels by Bone in the Royal Collection (Richard Walker, The Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century Miniatures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, Cambridge, 1992, nos. 757–64, ill.). The National Portrait Gallery, London, has Bone's large squared drawing of the complete portrait; it measures 360 x 242 mm and is inscribed Prince Regent 1816 (Richard Walker, "Henry Bone’s Pencil Drawings in the National Portrait Gallery," Walpole Society 61 [1999], no. 218). Walker mentions "numerous" head-and-shoulders enamel copies after the Lawrence portrait, including one in the Bone sale at Christie's, London, June 7, 1836, no. 28.

The sitter wears a field marshal's red uniform jacket with black cravat, gold-embroidered black collar, white shirt, and badges of the Orders of the Golden Fleece, the Garter, the Black Eagle, and the Saint-Esprit.

[2016; adapted from Reynolds and Baetjer 1996]

Inscription: Signed (left, in gray): HB [monogram]; inscribed (reverse, in pink on white enamel): His R.H. the / Prince Regent— / London March . 1816 . / Painted by Henry Bone R.A. / Enamel painter in Ordinary / to His Majesty & Enamel / painter to H.R.H. the / Prince Regent after the / Original by Sir Tho: / Lawrence R.A. &c

Collis P. Huntington, New York (by 1897–d. 1900; life interest to his widow, Arabella D. Huntington, later [from 1913] Mrs. Henry E. Huntington, 1900–d. 1924; life interest to their son, Archer Milton Huntington, 1924–terminated in 1926)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Four Centuries of Miniature Painting," January 19–March 19, 1950, unnumbered cat. (p. 9).

New York. Cooper Union. "The Prince Regent's Style," April 16–June 5, 1953, no catalogue?

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "European Miniatures in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," November 5, 1996–January 5, 1997, no. 223.

A Catalogue of Miniatures in the Collection of Collis P. Huntington. [New York], 1897, unpaginated, ill.

Graham Reynolds with the assistance of Katharine Baetjer. European Miniatures in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1996, pp. 14, 173–74, no. 223, ill. p. 175, state that it is probably copied after Lawrence's full-length portrait painted for Lord Charles Stewart, later 3rd Marquis of Londonderry, adding that the Royal Collection includes eight versions of this composition by Bone; note that Bone's squared drawing reproducing the complete portrait by Lawrence is in the National Portrait Gallery, London, and that an enamel copy (current whereabouts unknown) of the entire portrait was included in the Bone sale of 1832.

Katharine Baetjer. "British Portraits in The Metropolitan Museum of Art." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 57 (Summer 1999), p. 64, ill. (color).